One Word to Change Your Writing Life

If you’re not right now, you soon will be. It’s the nature of being a writer (and pretty much everyone else) these days.

But one there is one word that can completely change feelings of overwhelm and distraction to momentum.

This one word can actually completely transform your life.

The word is micro-productivity.

So what does that word actually mean?

It’s productivity at the very smallest level. So many people get tripped up with trying to find the “perfect productivity system” or even the “perfect writing system.”

It’s easy to end up going from one new bright and shiny system to another.

You think that using a new app will make all the difference, but it rarely does.

A new fancy notebook or set of pens won’t either.

What works is micro-productivity.

Micro-productivity requires just one specific task.

Not a project, a task. Cleaning your office is a project. Cleaning the stuff out of your computer keyboard is a task. Editing your book is a project. Editing chapter 9 is a task. If you’re not sure, just get more specific.

Once you know what specific task you want to do, move onto the next step.

Next, set a specific time limit for your task.

Something you KNOW you can do with your current schedule. So if you know you can only dedicate a half hour to writing, don’t say to yourself that you are going to write for two hours. This is where most productivity systems fall apart. It’s easy to assume in our head that things will always work out perfectly. How often does that really happen?

It doesn’t. If you’re at all like me, you struggle with perfectionism. You want the ideal writing scenario where you go away to a cabin and walk out with the perfect unblemished manuscript. A nice picture but this isn’t how writing works.

Instead of trying to pursue the perfect writing situation, micro-productivity is a tool you can use to build momentum and keep moving forward.

As you know, writing a book is more about showing up on a regular basis than it is having binge-writing sessions.

So keep showing up. Use micro-productivity to figure out the amount of writing you can do on a regular basis. Keep putting words on the page. If you’d like a little help, I’ve created The 5-Day Write First Challenge. It’s absolutely free, and will help you strengthen your writing habit.